Global technology company Clear Blue Technologies International Inc. has been selected as the power service provider for BRCK, a Kenyan technology provider working to connect frontier markets to the internet.
Clear Blue will provide BRCK with its Smart Off-Grid technology and service for a multi-year rollout of thousands of WiFi hotspots across Africa, set to begin in 2019 and running through 2024.
The alliance with BRCK adds to a wide variety of similar strategic partnerships with innovative, visionary organizations and investors. BRCK’s investors include renowned entrepreneurs Jim Sorensen and Steve Case. It was recently named as one of Time magazine’s 50 Genius Companies.
Both BRCK and Clear Blue are also part of the Telecom Infra Project, founded by Facebook, Intel, Nokia, SK Telecom, and Deutsche Telekom. In all, Clear Blue’s technology and services are bringing off-grid power through more than 500 projects in communities around the world and are being sold into an array of high-growth market segments, from telecom to Smart Cities, that represent an estimated addressable market totaling $38 billion in 2023. In Q2 2018, the company saw a 192% increase in trailing four quarter revenues, compared to Q2 2017.
“In the next decade, Africa will deliver the next billion Internet users2,” said Miriam Tuerk, CEO and co-founder of Clear Blue. “BRCK’s innovative business and technology model, Moja, provides a compelling value proposition to both the users and the providers of services via the Internet. We are pleased to be providing the reliable, clean, low-cost power and management service that is necessary for Moja WiFi hotspots to be both functional and economically viable.”
In 2018, Clear Blue supplied its Smart Off-Grid technology to power WiFi hotspots at 10 sites in Kenya. The success of these installations led to Clear Blue’s selection by BRCK for the large rollout, which will begin with additional sites planned in 2019.
This will result in an estimated $1 million (CAD) in revenue for Clear Blue in 2019, with order volumes set to grow in each follow-on year.
